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לְכָל דָּבָר וְעִנְיָין Growing up I would hear teachers in school use the expression “for all intensive purposes.” I knew what it meant but didn’t think about the words themselves. Only when I saw the expression in a book did the penny drop – it’s “for all intents and purposes.” Now it started making more…
פַּרְווָרִים Every Dose this week introduces a word or expression with origins in Biblical Hebrew, and פרוור – suburb – is no exception. It’s sometimes spelled פרבר, as in: בגלל יוקר המחיה עברנו לפרברים. Because of the high cost of living we moved to the suburbs. Now, פרוור doesn’t look or sound like a Semitic…
נִקּוּד The Hebrew vowel system The system of vocalizing Hebrew text – making it readable phonetically, so that even without understanding the word or context, you could sound it out – is called ניקוד (vocalized, נִקּוּד). The vowel marks themselves are called נקודות – which means literally, points. Early Hebrew speakers who could read, did…
נַחֲלַת הַכְּלָל Hebrew has two words for estate – אחוזה, coming from the root א.ח.ז meaning stronghold, and נחלה of the root נ.ח.ל meaning inheritance (also wadi). אחוזה always refers to a physical estate, sometimes to a mansion. נחלה, on the other hand, can also refer to estate in the abstract sense – domain, if you will. Thus נחלת…
גּוֹרָלִי The Hebrew word for fate or destiny is גורל. Thus גורלי means fateful when referring to something grammatically masculine, while גורלית refers to something feminine. For example: לעלות לארץ הייתה החלטה גורלית עם השפעות דרמטיות על חיי. To immigrate to Israel was a fateful decision with dramatic effect(s) on my life. I’ll tell you about them…